Double Blind Peer Review
Process
In the peer review, the scholarly work of one or more people (authors), is evaluated by experts of similar competence to the procedure of the work (peers). It constitutes a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. From the practically implementing the peer review methods credibility, performance enhancement or improvement, and quality standards are maintained. To ascertain the suitability of a manuscript for publication uses double-blind peer review. Based on the study of peer review as a pre-constructed process, there are a few scientific understandings of peer review that do not look at peer review as pre-constructed. The perception of the Nobel Research Journal (NRJ), is that journal peer review can be understood as reciprocal accountability of judgments among peers. In addition to this NRJ impose that journal peer review could be understood as a social form of boundary judgment - determining what can be considered as scientific (or not) set against an overarching knowledge system, and following predecessor forms of inquisition and censorship.
Procedure
In the case of proposed publications, the editor sends advance copies of an author's work or ideas to researchers or scholars who are experts in the field (known as "referees" or "reviewers"), nowadays normally by email or through a web-based manuscript processing system. NRJ assigns or sends scholarly work of authors to two reviewers for review. The reviewers (referees) return the filled form to the editor highlighting the problems/shortcomings or weaknesses along with the suggestions for improvement. In particular, most of the referees' comments are eventually seen by the author; scientific journals observe this convention universally. The editor, usually familiar with the field of the manuscript (although typically not in as much depth as the referees, who are specialists), then evaluates the referees' comments, her or his own opinion of the manuscript, and the context of the scope of the journal or level of the book and readership, before passing a decision back to the author(s), usually with the referees' comments. Referees evaluations usually include an explicit recommendation of what to do with the manuscript or proposal, often chosen from options provided by the journal or funding agency. Most recommendations are along the lines of the following:
- Accepting manuscript unconditionally.
- Accepting manuscript with minor changes suggested.
- Rejecting it, but encourage revision and resubmission.
- Rejecting manuscript all together with major changes (not fit for publication).
If both reviewers (referees) accept/comment in a positive way and recommend it for publication then NRJ proceeds further with the publication of the manuscripts. In situations where multiple referees disagree substantially about the quality of work, there are a number of strategies for reaching a decision. When an editor receives very positive and very negative reviews for the same manuscript, the editor will often solicit one or more additional reviews as a tie-breaker. As another strategy in the case of ties, editors may invite authors to reply to a referee's criticisms and permit a compelling rebuttal to break the tie. If an editor does not feel confident to weigh the persuasiveness of a rebuttal, the editor may solicit a response from the referee who made the original criticism. An editor may convey communications back and forth between authors and a referee, in effect allowing them to debate a point. Even in these cases, however, editors do not allow multiple referees to confer with each other, though each reviewer may often see earlier comments submitted by other reviewers. The goal of the process is explicitly not to reach consensus or to persuade anyone to change their opinions, but instead to provide material for an informed editorial decision. Traditionally, reviewers would often remain anonymous to the authors of NRJ.
